


Time Ticking Down

by toesohnoes



Category: Heroes - Fandom, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, M/M, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-01
Updated: 2011-10-01
Packaged: 2017-10-24 05:25:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/259473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toesohnoes/pseuds/toesohnoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Both John and Adam have their separate vendettas. This was never going to end well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Ticking Down

John shifts beneath him, worn muscle under bruised skin, but he doesn't tell him to go. That's an improvement. Adam traces the discoloured marks with his fingertip, prodding gently. It's been a very long time since his own skin has borne any such blemish. He heals long before it takes hold.

"You should be more careful," he scolds.

John snorts and reaches for his shirt, covering up all that skin. "You try being 'careful' when you've got a ghost tossing you around for fun."

"You could stop antagonising them," Adam points out, but this is a well-worn argument. He already knows that John won't listen. "You could stop hunting - we could settle down somewhere nice..."

"The thing that killed Mary is still out there."

Adam can't fight that. He's never been able to counter Mary, that painful shadow that still haunts John's life.

*

They met like this:

 _"Get down you goddamn idiot. You got a death wish?"_

 _"Not particularly. Just an extraordinary amount of luck."_

Three months later, it was:

 _"What the hell are you?"_

 _"I'm as human as anyone else. Just a little older. Please, lower the shotgun. It'll be more comfortable for us both."_

Within a year, John asked:

 _"It'll only be one night, I promise. Could you...?"_

 _"If you're not back for them by Friday I'll feed them to the wolves. I've no interest in raising children, John."_

 _"Just as well. You're an even worse role model than me."_

*

Adam would beg to differ. He likes to think of himself as a rather good role model, actually. He's survived through four centuries. Surely that ought to count for something.

Sam and Dean are strange little things, far older than their years. Sam likes to hear Adam's stories about the past, and Dean's eyes shoot as wide as doubloons when Adam shows him his sword, the blade glinting in the dim light of the hotel room.

"You're a bad influence on them," John scolds once the kids have been sent to bed, a grin colouring his words.

Before he steals another kiss from John's mouth, Adam smirks and asks, "On them or on you?"

He makes sure that John is too busy moaning to be able to answer.

*

"What would do you if I asked you to stop hunting?" Adam once asked earnestly.

"I'd tell you to fuck off," John had answered, still cleaning his shotgun, working the metal with his weather-worn hands. "What would you do if I told you to leave Primatech alone?"

It was hard to argue with him when they both had their own causes, their own vendettas to pursue. Adam sighed in irritation. "Be careful," he urged.

John never listened.

*

The boys grow up and John grows older but Adam stays the same, always only watching. He isn't around at all times: he flutters back and forth and watches their changes like the stuttering frames of a silent movie.

Once, just once, he returns to find John in a bar with someone else. She's tall and dark and beautiful - and Adam hates her on sight, because her hand is on the inside of John's thigh and her fingers are stroking the in-seam of his jeans, touching what isn't hers.

He strides forward and grabs John's arm on the way past, pulling him away without a word. It's like tugging a sack of bricks at first, until John realises who he is and relents. He holds his tongue all teh way to the bar's only toilet, and he watches as Adam locks them into the stall.

"When did you get here?" John asks. "Last I heard, you were running after cheerleaders in Texas."

Adam shut him up with the thrust of his tongue between his lips. It's less of a kiss and more of an assault: he needs contact, needs John's taste and his compliance. It's sweeter than any drug could be when John allows him to pillage; John's hands form tight fists in the expensive material of Adam's pristine white shirt.

The stall door rattles as John shoves him back against it, barely containing the grunt of satisfaction that burns against Adam's mouth. Adam sucks on his tongue, losing himself in the taste of him, the feel of him. He hasn't met a man like John in centuries.

Without a word John leaves Adam's mouth, his lips glistening with saliva, and drops down to his knees. They're in the blood men's bathroom; the tiles are hard and the air stinks, but John on his knees in such a place is the most erotic sight that Adam has ever seen. He bites down on his bottom lip as John unbuckles his belt and pulls him from the confines of his trousers.

His consciousness whittles down to hot, wet suction and the sight of John's bobbing head. His fingers clench in John's unruly hair, dragged along for the ride. His pulse pound in his ears as loud as thunder while his face burns and he gasps for air. He's lost; he knows this now. From the moment he met John Winchester, his fate has always been sealed. By the time he comes down John's waiting throat, he knows he never truly stood a chance.

*

The phone call is life-ending.

"He's dead," Dean says, his voice a metal rod along the phone line.

Adam chuckles, because he doesn't know what else to do. Reality is a static blur closing in on him, but he wants to hold it off for a little while longer. "What do you mean?" he asks, even if death has been a constant companion through the ages. He knows it too well, and not at all.

"I mean he's _dead_ ," Dean snaps, like crushing rocks into gravel. Adam wants to say something wise or flippant, but his mouth is filled with dry, dusty air. His hotel room feels like a coffin. "We're burning the body. Tonight. You should - He would want you to be there."

Adam blinks. His breathing is as steady as the ticking of a clock. He can't feel the phone in his hand, against his ear.

He can't feel anything at all.

*

He gets rid of his phone.

There's only one family who ever had the number.

The boys aren't children any more; they aren't boys at all - they're men. Grown-up, broken and mourning. Fatherless. Let someone else pick up the pieces. Adam has lasted this long by learning not to get hurt. Yet there are broken shards in his heart now that cut him up with every beat, and it's all John's fault.

"Goddamn it, Winchester," Adam murmurs as he sets to work on bringing Azazel down alone - because if John isn't here to do his work, Adam will be the one to finish the job.

Perhaps, this once, it's the least he can do.

*

He doesn't remember, in the rush of what comes next, what the last things he said to John were:

 _"Take care of yourself, alright? Watch your back."_

 _"Don't be a prick, John. I'll see you soon."_

It's not enough. There's never enough time.


End file.
